Smell Cookie, Spend Loosely

By Ben PopkenJuly 30, 2008

On a tight budget and using equal parts willpower and behavior self-modification? Stay away from the cookie places in the mall. The September 2008 issue of ShopSmart says studies show that even just catching a whiff of your favorite treat can increase your urge to splurge.

I hate to be a devil’s advocate here, but has anyone considered that it’s important to our psychological welfare to make irrational decisions from time to time? If you’re really aching for a cookie, the utility you derive from buying it can be higher than putting that money away in a bank. And if that cookie manages to brighten your day, isn’t that a legitimate improvement in your quality of life?

I know that a local chain of wedding ring stores has chocolate chip cookies baking in the store throughout the day. It’s corporate policy. They will also supply you with bottled water, soft drinks, and in some cases, wine and beer while they discuss your choices with you.

@linus: I’ve seen some of these experiments before. Control group fills out a computer survey asking how much they are willing to pay for a needed item. Next group comes in and there’s a tray of warm cookies placed in the room next door (perhaps with apologies because there is a meeting going on as soon as they are finished). That group completes the same survey and probably ends up spending more.

@rlue: yes. The point, though, is to be aware of as much as possible that is influencing your decisions. You cannot become immune to the smell of fresh cookies, pizza, hot tortillas, or whatever else. You can, however, go into a situation where it urges you to spend more than you wanted to, and then later not really know why you did it. Or, you can go in knowing full well the effect. The latter gives you a greater chance to resist it, should you want to.

@nfs: nah, they will smell like cookie-scented paraffin candles, or something else, that isn’t quite like cookie. :)

There’s probably a rational explanation for all of this. Cookies can’t be evil. Likely, the smell triggers a hunger response and the shopper then becomes a “hunter”: hunting for bargains to satiate the appetite. Grrrrr

@Trai_Dep: In high school I worked at a place that was directly across the street from an artificial smell company. They would develop and test artificial smell. That was it. Banana month smelled lovely, but strawberry month never smelled a bit like strawberries. (More like that reek of those old Strawberry Shortcake dolls.) Popcorn month I spent the entire month feeling like I was going to VOMIT, it was unbearable.

Anyway, I got pretty good at telling fake from real smells, and some of those cookie places do add extra cookie smell, which just strikes me as bizarre.

I had a short stint at a warehouse that was literally 30 feet from the baking ovens of a local cookie company (which is quite big, anyway). The smell… my god, the smell. I later learnt that all the little crumbs and bits of dough that fell down during the process weren’t cleaned all to regularly, so it was the smell of burning old cookie crumbs haunted me.

I worked at a store that sold high patio furniture and some home furnishings. We got a small convection oven that was specifically designed to be used in stores to bake cookies. We even signed up to have boxes of preformed dough balls delivered on a regular basis.
I think that the only thing that making cookies did was get me an extra 10 pounds.